Monday News: “For Trump, Hamas and Bibi, It Is Always Jan. 6”; “Democracy depends on two guys named Joe”; “Teflon Joe muddies GOP’s midterm strategy”; “Natural Gas, America’s No. 1 Power Source, Already Has a New Challenger: Batteries”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, May 17.

• Teenagers Are Winning Climate Fights One Court Case at a Time
• Greenhouse Emissions Are Messing With the Stratosphere, a New Study Reveals
• Western Australia eyes massive 100GW of wind and solar for green hydrogen by 2030 (“The Western Australian government says the state could play host to a stunning total of 100 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity to produce green hydrogen by 2030, and could double that number by 2040.”)
• Extreme Heat Risks May Be Widely Underestimated and Sometimes Left Out of Major Climate Reports (“New studies sharpen warnings for unlivable heat in the tropics, and nearly unthinkable extremes in major Northern Hemisphere cities.”)
• Central Banks Jump Into Climate-Change Policy Fray
• How we talk about the climate crisis is increasingly crucial to tackling it
• The World Economy Is Suddenly Running Low on Everything (“Surging corporate demand is upending global supply chains.”)
• From India, Brazil and Beyond: Pandemic Refugees at the Border
• India’s coronavirus vaccination drive is faltering just when the country needs it most
• India’s virus cases decline, but WHO expert says positive tests ominously high
• U.S. tiptoes through sanctions minefield toward Iran nuclear deal
• In England, eating inside and hugs are allowed again as restrictions ease
• Israel air strikes kill 42 Palestinians, rockets fired from Gaza
• Israel Rules Out an Immediate Cease-Fire With the Palestinians (“With an Israeli goal of eradicating militant missile capabilities, international officials face difficulty finding a path to peace”)
• For Trump, Hamas and Bibi, It Is Always Jan. 6 (“Just as a mob was unleashed by President Donald Trump to ransack our Capitol on Jan. 6 in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and prevent a healing unifier from becoming president, so Bibi and Hamas each exploited or nurtured their own mobs to prevent an unprecedented national unity government from emerging in Israel — a cabinet that for the first time would have included Israeli Jews and Israeli Arab Muslims together.”)
• Israel-Hamas conflict hurtles into second week with more strikes on Gaza
• Why Biden hasn’t thrown himself publicly into a mediation effort in the Middle East
• Israel-Palestinian conflict marks its deadliest day as scenes of horror unfold in Gaza
• Israel’s Real Existential Threat (“More than the missiles, I worry about the terror we have internalized. How will we overcome the hatred and fear?”)
• Israel and Palestine heading for ‘uncontainable’ crisis, UN chief warns
• Violence in Israel Is a Political Victory for Netanyahu
• EU, U.S. Reach Truce on Metal Tariffs Ahead of Biden Visit
• China’s repression of Uyghurs is not only cultural, but also physical, a new report shows
• Governments are deploying ‘wartime-like’ efforts to win the global semiconductor race
• Mask mandates might be going away, but don’t ditch yours just yet, scientists caution
• Confused Americans grapple with CDC’s new mask rules: ‘It caught us off guard’
• Fauci: ‘Undeniable effects of racism’ have worsened Covid for US minorities
• Where Virus Surged in Northeast U.S., Cases Fall as Shots Rise
• Democracy depends on two guys named Joe
• The GOP whitewash of the Capitol attack shows the need for a January 6 commission (“Two House Republicans have suggested that a commission could subpoena Kevin McCarthy.” Absolutely.)
• Teflon Joe muddies GOP’s midterm strategy (“Biden is proving to be a less-than-ideal foil, forcing Republicans to rethink the traditional formula for 2022.”)
• How The Republican Push To Restrict Voting Could Affect Our Elections
• Ignore the hype of Republicans threatening to ‘break away’ over Trump (“Anti-Trump Republicans get lots of media attention. That doesn’t mean they are relevant within the Republican party”)
• The stakes couldn’t be higher for America’s first major offshore wind farm
• Natural Gas, America’s No. 1 Power Source, Already Has a New Challenger: Batteries (Go batteries!)
• The ‘frills’ of Biden’s infrastructure plan are real needs
• The GOP needs to make a realistic counteroffer to Biden’s infrastructure plan
• Poll Details The Very Different Views Of Black And White Americans On Race And Police
• Black, Brown and extremist: Across the far-right spectrum, people of color are playing a more visible role
• Juan Williams: The GOP’s losing bet on Trump (“Trump’s support continues to fall among Republicans and independents, and especially among suburban votes and young voters, according to polls. President Biden, meanwhile, was at 63 percent approval in an AP-NORC poll released last week.”)
• Photo emerges of Republican barricading chamber doors during US Capitol attack after he compared rioters to ‘tourists’
• What Path Is Best In A Swing State? Georgia, Arizona Senators Try Diverging Messages
• Republicans seize on conservative backlash against critical race theory (This is as fake an “issue” as the supposed “War on Christmas.”)
• AT&T Is Preparing to Merge Media Assets With Discovery
• Finally, the NRA faces a long-overdue reckoning
• Who should anti-Trump Republicans be rooting for? Centrist Democrats. (It’s dumb to call them “centrists,” since basically all Democrats are in the center – in terms of being the majority or plurality on issue after issue – ideologically, but…sure, non-Trumpster Republicans should vote for Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, Elaine Luria, etc.)
• Republicans weigh in on Liz Cheney and direction of GOP — CBS News poll (Disturbing but not surprising results.)
• Rep. Liz Cheney criticizes ‘disgraceful’ GOP attempts to ‘whitewash’ Capitol attack
• Man charged with wife’s murder illegally cast her ballot for Trump, officials say: ‘I just thought, give him another vote’
• Space Force commander fired after comments made on conservative podcast
• Microsoft Directors Decided Bill Gates Needed to Leave Board Due to Prior Relationship With Staffer (By the way, Gates is also an idiot when it comes to a lot of things not related to computers, such as clean energy and the climate crisis, where he’s been wildly wrong over and over again.)
• Long Before Divorce, Bill Gates Had Reputation for Questionable Behavior
• Jeffrey Epstein Gave Bill Gates Advice on How to End ‘Toxic’ Marriage, Sources Say
• The Washington Post will soon have a woman as its top editor. And yes, that matters.
• Former Child Star Ricky Schroder Harangues Costco Employee Over Masks (Horrible person.)
• New York City Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams Pins Campaign to Public Safety
• The 2021 VA Statewide Campaigns Will Pit Reality-Based Democrats and “Big Lie”/Trumpian Republicans. It’s Crucial That Political Journalists Listen to People Like NYU Prof. Jay Rosen…and Adjust Their Coverage, Accordingly.
• Republican Glenn Youngkin has a surprisingly good chance of winning Virginia governorship (So far, “may benefit from a political climate similar to the one that helped win the governorship for Republican Bob McDonnell in 2009” is simply not the case – at all! Remember, in 2009 we were in a deep recession, had the “Tea Party” summer, then saw President Obama’s approval ratings fall to the low 40%s by the fall. Also, we didn’t have the memory of the 1/6/21 insurrection and Donald Trump’s nightmarish presidency – and the “resistance” to it – nor the threat of Trump still hanging out there. Those are all *massive* differences from 2009…)
• Kellen Squire’s Interview with Mark Herring: “I’ve been the one breaking barrier after barrier after barrier for progressive causes”
• Kellen Squire’s Interview with Jennifer McClellan: “the whole core of my being is I’m here to solve problems and make people’s lives better”
• Kellen Squire’s Interview with Lee Carter: “We can either be the party of, by, and for working people. Or we can be a party of Wall Street money.”
• With big money behind progressive challengers, 2021 could be test case for Charlottesville donors’ influence (“Smith and Clean Virginia have given a combined $1.1 million, $600,000 from Clean Virginia and $500,000 from Smith, to former delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, whom they believe has the best shot at challenging former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a five-person Democratic primary field. That’s about a third of the nearly $3.3 million in cash contributions Carroll Foy reported raising as of March 31.”)
• A new PAC aims to support progressive incumbents and primary challengers
• A federal lawsuit forces Virginia to own its duty to handle pandemic jobless claims promptly
• Virginia sees lowest rate of new coronavirus cases since pandemic arrived
• ‘We have a capacity problem’: The number of court-ordered hospitalizations at Eastern State Hospital has soared
• Alexandria will remove police from public school hallways
• Currently, It Appears the Only Candidates For Falls Church’s Four Open School Board Seats Are “Open Schools Now” Folks. Will Some Democrats Step Up? (One of them is a a right-wing Cato Institute Vice President…)
• Virginia Beach circuit judge and former delegate Glenn Croshaw dies at age 70
• Hesitance follow new mask guidance in Hampton Roads
• D.C.-area forecast: Turning summerlike this week with little chance of rain